Nashville, TN

For the whole of May (& a bit of June) Caleb (my husband) has been finishing off his new album in Nashville. I have travelled through Nashville before, at a show here & there but never truly spent any time there, so I was excited to spend a few days here & there to explore. The most I know about Nashville? There's a lot of murals, and terrible, terrible county music is loved here. So armed with that knowledge, I drove down to visit him for a few days. And then again a couple of weeks later. And here are the places I spent time eating at...

Five Daughters Bakery

This place was beautiful to look at, but turned out to not be as wonderful as I had hoped. I bought a...
choc chip donut, chocolate raspberry donut, blueberry cream donut & a chocolate brownie type cookie thing. I think the GF donuts were also paleo to cover all the bases they could in one go (vegan also available), but this meant that they were cake-like donuts... which are not my favourite. I truly love lighter than air donuts that you could eat a million of in one sitting, but for some reason that seems to be the holy grail when it comes to being GF. This isn't to say these donuts weren't tasty, they really were, they just weren't my cup of tea. The brownie/chocolate cookie type thing however was DELICIOUS! Totally up my kinda deal & I would definitely head there & buy this again. It was very chocolatey, so you have to be in the mood for it - it took me a few days to make a dent & then I didn't even finish it, but it was crumbly and chewy & highly recommended. If you like your donuts made as cake donuts, this place would be perfect for you. If you're like me & don't it's probably worth giving a miss, despite all the hype.
Ps. Their website also wasn't helpful with listings and I couldn't find a menu or see what to expect, so don't rely on that to make your decisions!

Juice Bar/ Vui's

I promise I didn't forget the name, this place is literally called Juice Bar and well, if you follow my Instagram you'll know that I love a juice and a açaí bowl. I was able to find a juice bar right by the studios where Caleb is recording & so (of course) immediately went in for an açaí bowl! I truly do love when I can eat them everywhere I go. I didn't (however) love it more than my usual bowl at Zest Juice in Columbus. I think I've been spoilt by Zest because I can choose any toppings I want & this came with a list of toppings already which I find is quite frequent at places that do smoothie bowls. I did play around with the toppings a little, but didn't want to be rude so just let what was already on the menu happen. Yummy! I also frequently got a green juice from here called Sweet Greens & that is truly worth getting. Definitely pay these guys a visit.

Right next door to Juice Bar there's a Vietnamese place that Caleb is in love with called Vui's Kitchen. Obviously it's hard for us Celiacs to eat at this type of place because of things like soy sauce (and I don't love pho), but there was one item on the menu I couldn't resist - coconut pudding. Made up of tapioca, chia seeds etc in coconut milk, it was super yummy and I had a bowl on each of my visits!

Frothy Monkey

We had brunch here right before I left on my first trip and although there was a giant wait to order (I think that comes with any restaurant on 12 South) there was GF symbols on the menu which was helpful & our food came out pretty swiftly. For some reason the Farm Breakfast wasn't GF (I'm guessing the potatoes?) and so I went for the "California" which was 2 eggs on avocado toast with sprouts and house-made salsa and although it was a pretty standard setup, the gluten free bread was really, really great. It was fluffy, thick and didn't fall apart which is unusual for GF bread. Caleb said it seemed almost like it was french toast! Sometimes eating basic breakfast is one of our only options, but I honestly really enjoy eggs, bacon and avocado - you can't go wrong! I also got a GF choc chip muffin to try and I'm not sure if they buy them in or if they're house-made, but it was really bouncy and light. I probably could have done with more choc chips, but who doesn't love an abundance/overload of choc chips? Just me? OK


On my second visit to Nashville I made sure to go to two places that I was desperate to try & I was not disappointed by either of them in the slightest...

Little Moskos

I love, loved this place. We went for breakfast (although their lunch specials sounded pretty darn good too) & I went for the Avocado Toast (eggs, sprouts, herbs, pickled red onions, arugula, chili flakes, pistachios, avocado & honey)  and Caleb got the Breakfast Tacos (a lot less confusing). I also got a side of bacon, because... you all know me well enough by now. We also then got just about every cookie you could possible try (choc chunk, lemon apricot, grapefruit cornmeal, salted macadamia nut & rocky road) and a slice of peach cake. 

These guys really paid attention - I'm not sure if the owner was GF but they asked me if I was celiac when ordering breakfast and shouted it to the chef when relaying my order. The hostess was awesome & when we bought more cookies to try she gave us a free one, which was truly lovely. The whole bakery is GF!!! Jackpot! I wish I'd discovered it on my first trip as I definitely would have loved to eat here again. The cookies lasted me the 3 days I was there & I even left some of them behind (sadly!) with Caleb, which I'm sure he enjoyed! The best cookies were: rocky road, salted macadamia nut & grapefruit cornmeal (in my opinion) and the cake was truly delicious, but could have used an accompaniment (I did get it to go though, so not sure that if I ate it there if it would have had some kind of cream or something to go with). We definitely could not tell that any of them were GF. I have no idea what their secret is, but it was all so perfect I was clueless about how they managed to get the textures they did. Brilliant!


Their actual food was also bloody good. My avocado toast was LOADED with avocado. Usually in breakfast places they scrimp on that. The bread was also ridiculous. I couldn't believe it was GF. Caleb couldn't either. It was thick and fluffy. Unbelievable. I have no idea where everywhere in Nashville is getting their GF bread from, but I wish I knew! I also wish I had been able to eat more of it all because I enjoyed it so much. The tacos looked great, but I think the real winner was the avocado toast, so if you go & can't decide, I would suggest the toast. Also the lunch menu looked great too - maybe one day I'll get to try that too! *Be aware that they change the menu every week, so check their website for the most up-to-date food listing. Also, they don't list which baked items they'll have each day, so there's no way to plan what you can get from that, you'll just have to wing it. TWO THUMBS UP!

Two Boots

After originally thinking this entire pizza joint was GF (because they do cornmeal crust), I realized when ordering that they weren't. Their website is a disaster & doesn't really work, but I finally could see that the GF was a separate pizza. They do use dedicated trays and cutters for the GF, but obv this is a pizza place, so try at your own risk, but I decided to go for it. I got a pepperoni, onion and jalapeño pizza - for some reason I've really been into this combo the past couple of months, no idea why. The pizza itself was great, the base was malleable (something hard to come by in ol' GF world) and I could bend the slice without it breaking or cracking! Just like a real NY slice! It tasted great, my only issue would be that they just put chopped raw jalapeños on top and didn't cook them which I find a bit strange? Is that just me? I got a side of marinara to dip my pizza in & also didn't love that - it was very plain and basic. Overall though, absolutely DELICIOUS! I did have a bit of a bad stomach later that night, but I wasn't sure if it was because of the jalapeños? So I can't give them a 100% guarantee about cross contamination, but they don't sell themselves as that - so as I said, try at your own risk. I might, however, look up where they get their bases from & order some online if I can, because it was fantastic.

Did I miss some great places in Nashville? Where are your favourite spots? I might be heading to Napa in a couple of weeks to go check out some vineyards so if any of you have suggestions for around that area, I am all ears!

Ps. I also managed to find some of the Austin East Ciders that I drank in Austin with Rosie a few weeks ago. They don't sell it in Columbus, so after finding a Red Grapefruit flavour, I went & bought four 6 packs to drive home with to last all summer long. Ha! If you ever come across it, I highly recommend it!